Composites of Fe3O4/SiO2 from Natural Material Synthesized by Co-Precipitation Method

Synthesis of Fe3O4/a-SiO2 nanoparticle has been conducted based on natural materials by using the co-precipitation method. The used silica was a-SiO2 collected from silica sand from Bancar Tuban, Indonesia. The Fe3O4 collected from iron sand's Lumajang, Indonesia. The samples was set for Fe3O4 : a-SiO2: PEG composition of 1 : 2 : 1. The process was maintained by melting the PEG 4000 and following by adding a-SiO2 and Fe3O4. The samples were characterized by using X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectroscopy. The analysis of the XRD data showed that additional silica into Fe3O4 tended to change the diffraction pattern that represents the existent of both Fe3O4 and silica. The SEM images presented that the samples formed in nanometric size with core-shell structure. Furthermore, the FTIR spectra showed that Si-O-Fe bound appeared at 555-568 cm-1. Thus, this work was able to produce the Fe3O4/a-SiO2 nanocomposites by using co-precipitation method in a core-shell structure.